Liberal Vision

Here’s censoring you, kid

Liberal (sic) Democrat-run Liverpool City Council has opened a consultation on whether to impose an 18 certificate on films that feature the smoking of tobacco. The proposal is supported by the Liverpool Primary Care Trust.

Where to start?

Well, the good news is that historical figures who actually smoked would be allowed to be portrayed accurately. Any new movies featuring Winston Churchill will not need to  show the great man eating tofu and practising yoga to secure a prized PG certificate.

Also, portraying the “clear and umabiguous” dangers of smoking (and second hand smoke) would be acceptable. I think this means that Darth Vader can light up in a new Star Wars movie (that guy has one hell of a wheezy cough) but that a number of James Bond films would be seen as fit for adults only. One of the greatest epics of all time – Casablanca – would have become illegal to show to A-level students, if it was made now.

I’m fascinated by how “clear and unambiguous” the anti-smoking message needs to be. Imagine a gangster film set in the 1950s. If our hero smokes, that gets an 18 certificate. If, however, he is captured by the baddies and they threaten to kill him by exhaling their cigars in his face, I guess that’s family entertainment.

You can respond to Liverpool City Council’s consultation here. Please do so, and help talk them out of this ludicrous cultural vandalism.

Liberal Vision on the Westminster Hour

Off the plane and into the studio… Mark Littlewood will be appearing on the Westminster Hour 10 pm tonight on radio 4.

He will be commenting on  the recent Liberal Democrat document “A Fresh Start for Britain” (which sets out the principles on which the Lib Dem General Election manifesto will be built) and discussing the future of the party.

England need sustainable batting in difficult global conditions

From cricinfo.com after England collapse for 102 all out:

Gordon Brown writes: “I think hard-working families up and down the country will be proud and will recognise how the England cricketers have fought through the difficult morning session and emerged into the far brighter afternoon session their hard work so richly deserves. After all, England lost seven wickets this morning, and predictions suggest they cannot possibly lose more than three this afternoon, so recovery is obviously just around the corner.”

Ho ho ho.

Comment is Linked: Tom Papworth on Quantitative Easing at the IEA blog

The following article was published on the Institute of Economic Affairs blog yesterday, and is reproduced here with their permission.

The Bank of England’s decision to pump an additional £50 billion into the economy, over and above the £125 billion earlier this year, has been accompanied by the sound of Keynesians cheering that quantitative easing (QE) has worked.

Robert Peston argues that QE should lead to “lending increases, spending increases, price rises and investors’ appetite for risk returning”. And the BBC duly notes that “there are very tentative signs of a recovery. House prices are increasing… factories are producing more, retail sales have risen slightly and lending is on the increase…”

The problem with this is that it is based on correlation. There is no proven link between the Bank’s policies and the apparent upturn in the economy. Nor should there be. BoE Deputy Governor Charlie Bean has noted that – like interest rates – it takes time for QE to have a discernable effect.

But even if this were not so there is no way to tell whether QE is causing the upturn, is merely happening alongside the upturn, or whether it is in fact laying the ground for the next recession (as classical economics would suggest).

Rather, Quantitative Easing is benefiting from the inherent advantage enjoyed by all interventionists: as any crisis is followed by a reversion to trend (“business as usual”), so any recovery can be attributed to actions taken in response to the crisis, whether they had an effect or not.

Ludwig von Mises argued that economics could not be empirical: one could not treat it as an experimental and evidence-based science (like physics) but should instead consider it a logical science (like mathematics). In something as complicated as an economy, where tens of millions of actors are making countless decisions every day, one cannot have all the knowledge required to draw causal links, nor can one conduct experiments.

Yet the enthusiasm with which Quantitative Easing is being cheered is based entirely upon the fact that recovery has followed easing. Recovery may just as well have followed no easing. Recovery may have been quicker, or at least more sustainable, without it. We cannot know. What we do know is that reckless expansion of the money supply causes inflation and structural imbalances in the economy and so lays the seeds of the next recession.

The Bank of England, and the rest of us, should take note.

Is it because I is urban, not urbane?

These posters of Barack Obama, right, have been the “talk of the blogosphere” across the pond this week–at least according to the Washington Post.  Via Reason mag my attention was drawn to the WashPo article which  criticises the posters somewhat strangely:

“…the poster is ultimately a racially charged image. By using the “urban” makeup of the Heath Ledger Joker, instead of the urbane makeup of the Jack Nicholson character, the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can’t openly discuss. He is black and he is identified with the inner city”

Umm … you what?

If you’ll excuse a personal anecdote, this episode reminds me of a period in my somewhat class confused upbringing during which I attended a school that was tangibly more salubrious than the estate on which I was living.  Teenage Julian therefore enjoyed an amusing contrast between the middle class during the day, and the working class at evenings and weekends.

One of the most notable distinctions between the two micro-cultures regarded race.  At school, it was the most constant and sensitive issue, permanently on everyone’s minds.  Our schoolboy mouths may have been filthier than a sewer rat, but no insult or charge carried more strength than “racist.”  In short, we couldn’t shut up about it.  Anyone who slipped off the politically correct line was immediately castigated.

Constrasting with this near-obsession was the environment on the estate, which I’d estimate was, to use ethnic generalisations, about 60 per cent black and 40 per cent white.  Everyone was mingled, and race simply wasn’t an issue.  That’s not to say it was ignored – in a sense our race defined each of us, but this was simply accepted, and was something anyone might casually refer to whenever they liked.  I remember on one occasion we had a Black v White football game, just because it was the easiest way to pick sides.  It wasn’t at all acrimonious, there was no underlying tension, no angst, no analysis … no issue.  It just was.

So what makes writing, journalistic types so desperate to use strangely pseudo-intellectual analyses to point to racism?  Why the obsession?  Guilt?

The poster is undoubtedly disrespectful to the President (not that this is a bad thing in itself).  The white face paint does, arguably, hint at racist undertones (especially as the link between the Joker and Obama’s alleged socialist revolution is tenuous to say the least), and perhaps for that reason the poster makes one feel a tad uncomfortable.

But to analyse the image in Kennicott’s manner is, well, odd.  However, it’s also typical of such allegedly high-brow analyses of cultural events in publications like the WashPo, and in race-obsessed circles in the USA.

Almost as typical, you might say, as an English person turning everything into an entirely fruitless debate about “class.”

Guilty as charged, your Honour.